• The Daily Telegraph
• Le Figaro
• The New York Post
• L’Orient-Le Jour
• L'Osservatore Romano
• The Irish Times
• Conservative Home
• The Jewish Chronicle

• FAZ / Eng.
• NZZ / Eng.
• Magyar Nemzet
• ABC.es
• The Catholic Herald
• Il Foglio
• London Playbook
• Financial Times

France

Mitteleuropa

Knickerbockers

Argentina

The Levant

Africa

Cape of Good Hope

Netherlands

Scandinavia

Québec

India

Muscovy

Germany

I’d never been until my friends — a married couple previously living in Fulham with their three children — moved there over two years ago. F. had lived in Milan previously so he speaks excellent Italian and his wife M. was born in London to Italian parents. For them, the move made sense with international schools, work, and a better everyday quality of life. Finding a place to live isn’t always transparent but their local links (including, once he noticed they’d turned up enough Sundays in a row, the parish priest) gave them a leg up. Now they’ve bought a place in Rapallo they’re renovating.

I usually stay in Nervi, the last borough of Genoa proper down the coast, but the last time I stayed in Quinto just around the corner from them. Having previously always been a sandy beach guy – it’s all we have on the Sound – I now have to concede the superior status of rocky beaches. Perhaps that descriptor doesn’t give the right impression: stony might be a better word. The beach in the tiny old fishing port of Nervi is sand, but Quinto’s is composed of small stones made smooth by centuries of Mediterranean tides. It is immensely less fuss than the perpetual struggle against the pervasive remnants of sand. So now I am a spiaggia di Quinto devotee rather than a spiaggia di Nervi fan – though the old fishing village remains delightful.

On pilgrimage to Walsingham recently I ran into newly married friends from New York (he’s half Virginian, half Italian; she’s full Italian). I told them I’d been going to Liguria a lot lately and he mentioned the Italian side of his family came from originally. I said it was Genoa I was mostly visiting but staying in Nervi and it turns out the villa I usually book myself a tiny room in was, many moons ago, the ancestral shack of his family. Small world.

What’s to like about Genoa? I am a coastal person, and ever since the period I spent many of my summers in Lebanon I have pretentiously designated myself as spiritually Mediterranean. I don’t think I could abide living anywhere too far from the sea. London at least has Old Father Thames (a respectable if sometimes paltry substitute) and of course is a port city. Oxford I could just about manage because what it lacks in coastal proximity it more than compensates for in architectural beauty.

Genoa has it all. Even better: it is inoculated against Monaco-lite Eurotrash vibe so much of the Riviera suffers from by having a full working port right at its heart. Like my beloved Kaapstad – I still read Brian Ingpen’s port and shipping column every Wednesday in the Cape Times – there is something reassuring about these earthy functional spaces not being banished to the fringes as we in New York did, and indeed as London has done too. It’s a reminder of the real foundations of Genoa’s greatness as a maritime republic that traded across the seas and discovered the New World. (“In this house, Columbus is a hero.”) The cross of Saint George is everywhere and the Genoese proudly tell you they had it before England did. There may be some truth to that, if the vexillologists are to be believed.

The port is not just functioning, but thriving. In the 1970s, Fincantieri threatened to close down its shipyard at Sestri Ponente. Cardinal Siri – Genoa’s arch-conservative archbishop – moved heaven and earth to keep it open, urging his priests to preach on the subject and coordinating the efforts of trade union leaders and elected representatives to halt the closure.

The Cardinal won, and today Fincantieri is the largest shipbuilder in Europe. Railway improvements nearing completion will soon link up Genoa’s ports with the industrial corridor of the Rhineland, cutting shipping times to the Middle East and Asia by days (and freeing up capacity at Rotterdam, one of the busiest ports in the world).

Genoa is far from mere industry. It is chockablock with palaces, the most sumptuous of which made it onto the Rolli di Genova, which meant they were obliged to host official visitors to the maritime republic. Forty-two out of the 163 palaces on the rolls have now been recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along with the Strade Nuove constructed during the peak of Genoa’s prosperity.

These beautiful palaces dot the city: some of them are museums, other civic or government offices, hotels, and of course some still private homes. Meanwhile the University preserves the life of the mind — they recently held a day-long conference on Cardinal Siri “pastor and prophet”. As you stroll down the via Balbi from the Palazzo dell’Università you will encounter impeccably well-dressed communist students hawking their Marxist newspapers. (Which reminds me: I must augment my academic mug collection by adding an UniGe example.)

Most important of all, the life of the soul: Genoa has an Oratory of St Philip Neri. I happened to be in town last St Philip’s Day and the church was packed for the High Mass. The Oratory Fathers – who maintain links with our own here in London – clearly have a good rapport with the faithful, and without fail whenever I am in Genoa I run into the delightful Fr Mauro of this community.

Liguria is not just Genoa. Up and down the coast there are innumerable towns and cities worth exploring: Camogli, Santa Margeherita, Rapallo, the ubiquitous Portofino, Sestri Levante. That’s just the Riviera di Levante – the east side the sun rises from. The Riviera di Ponente – the west – has the old republic of Noli, the Bay of the Saracens, astounding cliffsides, and the Maghreb-tinged homes of Varigotti.

There are almost infinite hiking routes as well, including a glorious one to the almost-hidden bay of San Fruttuoso. This tiny former abbey with its beach and handful of houses was owned by the Doria Pamphilj family for centuries until donated to the FAI, Italy’s national trust, in 1983. It is an immensely beautiful spot to enjoy some trofie and recover from an arduous hike over the mountain from Santa Margharita.

There are no roads to San Fruttuoso. You have only two ways to get there: over the hills (2,000 feet at the highest point) or by the sea. For the faint of heart and breath, the ferry back to Santa is a welcome friend… but you can hike back up the hills and pick the ferry up in Portofino instead, after a sufficiently satisfying gelato and cigarette. Monte Castello offers some excellent hiking territory as well. The Cinque Terre is best avoided — beautiful, but mobbed with Germans, Americans, and Japanese. You will find no peace there. (In Vernazza, a wealthy rooinek spotted my veldskoene and asked if I was from South Africa.)

ligurian winter is so so wonderful pic.twitter.com/dA9AgUB6Ez

— paola (@paolalien) December 29, 2025

As for Genoa, unfortunately everyone’s getting in on it. “With its winding, crowd-free streets, baroque palazzos, and exquisite Ligurian cuisine,” British Vogue proclaimed in June, “this underrated Italian seaside city is a stylish alternative to Marseille”. Meanwhile the FT declared Genoa “one of the magnificent cities in Europe, yet hardly anyone ever goes there”. Keep it that way!

“Long overshadowed by its better-known neighbours,” Condé Nast Traveller says that Genoa now has “an inspired set of patrons intent on putting it back in the frame”. Mrs & Mrs Smith hails it and now the New York Times has put Genoa on its list of 52 Places to go in 2026. (Please don’t!)

Monocle says Genoa is undergoing a rebirth “thanks to visionary locals and fresh talent”. The Spectator was just glad not to hear a single English accent.

I still have much to explore, whether in Genoa itself or across Liguria. One of the Italians at the British Embassy in Rome is a local patriot and has made the case for his native La Spezia. As it happens, there is a brutalist cathedral there I’d like to see. (Not everyone’s cup of tea, I’ll admit.) I am tempted by a production of Tristan at Teatro Carlo Felice next month.

But please: do not spread the word. Don’t go to Genoa. Give Liguria the cold shoulder. I want all the focaccia for myself.

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